Steve Gleason can’t help himself. When his brother-in-law asked if he wanted to run a half marathon a couple of weeks ago, the ex-Saint didn’t hesitate.

“I’m in,” Gleason said.

Never mind that he has trouble standing, much less walking. Gleason has always barreled through life, so he’s not going to run from death. All he needed Saturday was a little help from a friend.

“Steve never opposes trying something new,” Vinnie Varisco said.

He’s the brother-in-law who lined up with Gleason at the Jazz Half Marathon in New Orleans. The starting gun boomed at 7 a.m., and off they went on the 13.1 mile excursion.

Varisco did the pushing. Gleason did the smiling. If you saw runner No. 2766 in the customized wheelchair, you couldn’t help smiling and cheering and maybe even crying.

Gleason has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Six years ago, he was fast enough to block a punt that crystallized New Orleans’ rise from Katrina.

Now Gleason can’t take a step without help. That’s the teary part. Everything else makes you want to cheer.

“You see how he approaches every day. He never complains,” Varisco said. “He’s trying to inspire other patients to not treat the disease as a finality. But to take it and see how they can continue living an inspired life.”

Gleason didn’t need a fatal disease to do that. His hero credentials were well established before the muscles in his upper arm started twitching two years ago.

He was not big or fast. He had one start in his NFL career, but he somehow lasted eight years as a special teams demon. There’s a 9-foot testament to that outside the Superdome.

It’s called “Rebirth," a statue of a fully outstretched player blocking a punt. In real life on Sept. 25, 2006, the ball was recovered in the end zone for a touchdown.

It was the Saints’ first game in the rebuilt Superdome. That play signified to the world that the city and its people were back. It couldn’t have been triggered by a more appropriate player.

Gleason epitomized New Orleans’ free spirit. His fashion style was long hair and flip-flops. He studied philosophy, played the guitar and preferred yoga to weightlifting.

His off-seasons were spent traipsing around the Galapagos Islands, Nicaragua and the Andes Mountains. He started a recycling program at the Saints’ practice facility, and lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the heart of the city.

He retired in 2008 and married a local girl, Michel Varisco. Their six-month honeymoon covered Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal and Greece.

They settled in New Orleans. Gleason got a job at an engineering firm, worked on his MBA at Tulane and did TV on the weekends. Everything was charmed until he felt those strange twitches.

Soon after, he had trouble lifting his fingers. Tests eventually confirmed the worst.

ALS afflicts three out of 100,000 people. The mind stays sharp, but the body shuts down. There is no cure. People generally live two to five years after it initially strikes.

Gleason was 33 when he got the news. In an email to close friends he vowed, "to fight and believe and expect the extraordinary and smile and laugh and cry and love our lives for every breath that remains in my body.”

He initially stopped working on his MBA, but then went back to Tulane. He and Michel took a cross-country trip last summer in a four-wheel drive van.

They named it “The Iron Horse,” after Gehrig. It took them to Mount McKinley, where they viewed the summit in a helicopter. Steve caught a 17-pound salmon in an Alaskan river. He was called up on stage during a Pearl Jam concert and played tambourine during an encore.

He had a son. Rivers Gleason turned one last week. Steve has trouble holding him, but the boy will never doubt his father’s love.

You can see the photos at Teamgleason.org. The website and organization is dedicated to raising money and awareness and allowing other patients to live like Gleason.

He has sent them on hot-air balloon rides and white-water rafting trips. Team Gleason has purchased scooters to help patients get around.

Oddly enough, Gleason needed better wheels going into Saturday’s race. A neighbor saw him being pushed in his regular wheelchair.

“That’ll never do,” he said.

He hooked Gleason up with a New Orleans man who gave him a customized three-wheeler.

“It was heavy,” Varisco said, “but once you got the momentum going, you could keep a pretty clean ride.”

They rode from Lafayette Square down St. Charles Avenue and around Audubon Park. Gleason hadn’t announced he was participating beforehand, so spectators were surprised when he rambled by.

A disc jockey stationed along the way played the song the Saints play after they score a touchdown, “Stand Up and Get Crunk.” On the second pass, he cranked up U2’s “The Saints Are Coming.”

The Saint and his helper did an admirable job of that. They finished 496th and 497th in the field of 2,083.

Varisco usually runs a half-marathon in less than 90 minutes. Saturday took one took an hour and 52 minutes.

“It’s more difficult. But again, it’s all relative,” he said. “Very rarely will you hear me or anyone around Steve complaining about something being difficult when you see what he goes through on a daily basis.”

Steve joked that he wasn’t tired at all. His friend did all the work.

“I’m just worried that he’ll say, ‘Let’s do a full marathon,” Varisco laughed.

Don’t bet against it. As much as we wish it weren’t so, Gleason knows the finish line is approaching.